But civil
society must necessarily be weak if the state is overwhelmingly strong, whereas
a strong civil society can challenge an authoritarian state. If we consider the
history of Egypt, we find that after centuries of suppression of the masses,
towards the end of the nineteenth century various civil institutions existed in
Egypt and became a driving force that finally led to the termination of colonial
domination of the country and to nominal independence from Britain. The
movement aimed at and partly achieved a pluralism with political and religious
freedom, respecting minority rights as well as the rights of women, during the
so-called ‘liberal age’ between 1922 and 1952, until a serious setback in the
development of Egyptian civil society occurred in the middle of the twentieth
century with the adoption of military rule, the abolition of the multi-party
system and the political orientation towards the Soviet Union.